WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? (GAME DEVELOPMENT EDITION)

Sniped:

author=Waxius

author=Gretgor
You know that feeling when you have thousands of ideas burning in your mind, they're all well formed and you know the direction you want to take the game in, but you still can't bring yourself to actually start implementing it, because you don't feel ready? How to deal with that?

The only thing I can suggest is... do something, even if it's wrong. Just getting in there throwing in "show text" events will get your brain working in the right frame.

I've been working on a new battle mechanic for bosses... I started with just a simple idea... I wanted bosses to be about 4x larger than regular monsters... but HOW can you do that in RPG Maker 2003 without large sprite support?? With Pictures! I had no idea how much of a pain that would be... but I've spent over a week with it, and it's almost ready to roll out in the next update. Just a few more tweaks and I'll have a video to show you.

author=Gretgor
You know that feeling when you have thousands of ideas burning in your mind, they're all well formed and you know the direction you want to take the game in, but you still can't bring yourself to actually start implementing it, because you don't feel ready? How to deal with that?

Make outlines.
Expand on details in the outlines.
Revise outlines.
Revise some more until satisfactory.
Follow Outlines.
???
Profit

I could never finish a game (except, like, one time) in a reasonable amount of time unless I had an outline. I just tried to make another game without as detailed an outline. I am failing. I'm going to make a detailed outline and follow it to the end to get it done. Then maybe I'll finish it within the next two years.

There's this idea that won't leave me alone. Several, actually, but one would be spoiled if I talked about it. Another I think I've mentioned before.

Essentially its a conceptual hybrid of Shadowrun and Robocop (and a dash of FF7 mostly with Crisis Core since there might be comparisons to Shin-Ra) with a visual mix of the Borg Queen for the main character between missions. You are a security officer in a cyberpunk dystopia. Unlike most of the other guards due to an incident near the end of your training you were left paraplegic... but you still had a contract with the company to fulfill. To this end they used you as an experimental mechcore. Like the Borg Queen being installed into a new machine body, you are installed into different mecha frames based on the situation. An intruder has snuck into the building? Speed-frame with claws overlapping your arms. Terrorists attacking the company compound? Two-person wide minitank with either shoulder-mounted auto-feed turrets or plasma grenade launchers. In essence the different mechs would serve as SubClass packages with skills inherent to them. With enough use of certain ones you can 'record' the skills to your headware, this is the basically same thing seen with some Weapon Skills in various RPGs. At first the game plays out a few missions from the company but after what is effectively the prologue you have the option to either follow along and fulfill your contract or try to escape from the people who decided to experiment on you.

This could work as a tactical RPG or the combat mechanics could be more like Long Gone Days or Medabots GB. There ideally would be a Displayed Loyalty system. The more loyal you act, the more freedom you have. Less freedom could mean lowered pay, weaker weaponry in a bid to have an "combat damage" excuse to work on you some more, or even being shoved into a stasis pod between shifts. Higher loyalty could also mean better rewards for filling out jobs, lowered cost of living and for various goods and services, or to trigger some otherwise rare events. A low Loyalty character is treated with derision by the company but some characters would react with disgust at how you are being treated. There also would be a chance that some of the enemies you are sent to dispatch would offer you a way out. A high Loyalty character would be lauded as the company's golden boy, an ideal worker. Just as with the low Loyalty reactions there would be some characters who sneer down at you for being a "dumb thug". Some enemies during fights would also target you more than your allies and there could be a chance that someone on your side could turn on you (either to rise in the ranks and claim it was an accident, or just to get rid of a potential threat to their own safety because who knows how you may react to someone not following all the rules).

Ideally this would open up into more than just a hub-base with a bunch of missions but if you're not careful it could become nothing but missions.

author=Gretgor
I'm thinking about making a shorter, less story-heavy and less polished game than the one I've been planning for the last few months, to serve as some sort of "proof of concept" for the mechanics I intend to add to the larger game. In reality, the "larger" game is probably only gonna be four hours long, so the shorter one would be about... one hour long?

However, I don't know if I should. On one hand, making said shorter, less polished game is going to be easier and might give me a boost in confidence to work on the larger project once I recieve enough feedback on it, but on the other hand, I'd have to make two games instead of just one. Thoughts?

And no, I wouldn't be able to fit this shorter game as a "demo" for the longer one. It would simply not make sesne :(

Sounds like you've got TWO different stories you want to tell! So you have a few options available to you:

1. Make a proof of concept only... if it's a custom battle system, have the player go through two battles to show how it works... and that's it. You can have this as a separate download on your actual game page if that page exists.

2. Make the shorter game with nothing more than the native graphics/music of your RPG Maker engine (or whatever engine you're using). Create the proof of concept there for your mechanics and focus this game on the mechanics with as little story as possible. Get feedback and make improvements in this game and in the larger game.

3. Don't make the short game at all, just work diligently on the larger game and release the first hour of it once it's ready. Get feedback on your mechanics and improve upon it. Continue to get feedback while you make regular updates until the full game is complete. If the smaller game has a story you really wanted to tell, you can now use the same mechanics (All improved now), on your smaller game.

4. Release your proof of concept as VIDEOS instead of a playable game. There's topics in the forums (actually, it's THIS topic) and people here would give feedback to you. This way, you won't have to make sure all the events work or fix bugs, you'd only have to show exactly what you want feedback on.

Hope this helps... while I can't tell you what to do.. I'll gladly share my thoughts on whatever you present.

I wouldn't think so, and in most cases, you'd probably be applauded for using a mechanic from someone's favorite games.

I'd love to play a RPG MAKER game that used Final Fantasy 7's materia system to equip on weapons and armor for example, or even the Esper System for learning spells like in Final Fantasy 6.

Two things to consider. If you borrow a solution from another game, make sure it works the same or better than the original, and as long as the game is FUN, you'll do fine. I realize that FUN is relative though.

author=Gretgor
I may be Dunning-Krugering as heck right here, since my understanding of all things related to design is very shallow, but I've been thinking about this for a while now.

Game design may very well be one of the hardest disciplines of design, due to the absolutely unique challenges it poses.

Design (according to my layman understanding) usually focuses on making things that are functional, useful, safe, appealing, easy to use, reliable, comfortable, and, in some cases, interesting and enjoyable. Games must not only check every item on that list, as they must also punish the player with an undesirable outcome in case the skill they applied to a certain task is insufficient to reach their goal.

That is something unprecedented, really. You don't see a flashlight, a TV, a car, a toy, a watch, a laptop, a soda bottle, a remote controller, or a phone wilfully punish their user for lack of skill. However, this is something that games not only can do, but must do. They must do so in a way that the user is aware of what they are being punished for, and in a way that doesn't make the user lose interest after failure. With that in mind, the fact that game design is even possible is already a marvel.

Therefore, I don't think I should feel bad for "aping" design ideas from successful games, since I'm neither a game designer (nor a designer of any sort) nor the leader of a large team... right? I don't intend to outright copy anything from other games, just adapt some of their solutions to certain design problems to my own game. Does that make me lazy, or even dishonest?

Thanks @Darken and @Waxius. I'll have to keep those things in mind, and do a whole lot of thinking, testing, feedback acquisition, et cetera. But it will be worthwhile, or so I hope ^_^

I wanna marry whoever is responsible for the new "show picture" options.



They're all I asked for and more. Worth every penny I spent getting the full version <3

I need to figure out how to do flat (not percentage based) Damage Over Time in Ace. I'm sure I had a script for that at one point. I probably knew how to script that myself at one point. But certainly not now.

author=Waxius
You can thank Cherry for that I think... I love the full version and that you get 9999 variables instead of 5000 max.

Cherry, would you marry me?

If you were to make a game starring a dog...tell me about that game. (I keep seeing excellent, available resources of dogs in various styles my mind wanders to a robust use for them.)

Edite:
Also thinking about how much my gam mak stamina has declined since I was a younger. I used to marathon like six hours in front of the editor, easy. Now it's tough for me to manage much more than plinking away at a game for an hour before I'm looking for something else to do. Might be the depression but I think it's mostly getting old.

Working on listing historical events that shape the world in which my game takes place, including basically every major event all the way to the beginning of the game. Now I'm giving the list a long, hard look, just to make sure I didn't dig myself any absurd plot holes.